Sunday, July 15, 2012

Empower, engage, and inspire students by adding a few of these websites to your teaching toolbox! Set aside 30 minutes each week to explore new ways to harness the power of the web! Try these techie tools and create and environment where students publish rather than hand in, collaborate regularly with other students and teachers all over the world, wonder, and explore!

Thursday, July 12, 2012

It’s
a new day in Bellevue Public Schools! We are moving our certified
staff members to the Mac world! For years, our district has been using
PC’s and now we are requiring our teachers to learn how to function in
the Mac environment. It has been a week long of training sessions every
morning and afternoon! Teachers are excited as they embark on this new
journey! Training people how to use the Mac can feel like an endless
mountain to climb and some folks are easily overwhelmed with this new
way of doing things.However,
I can’t help but notice the screens that are opening up all over the
room- iTunes, mail, iMovie, Quicktime, and iPhoto! They want to know
what to do with these applications! That is a good sign as we move into
a new school year. Their curiosity is what will drive them to learn
how to use these applications. It may even deliver them to our doorstep
for a Techie Tuesday for additional training!

In
working with teachers over the course of the week I am encouraged by
their positive spirit and willingness to learn something new! I can see
their excitement about syncing up their iPhones or iPads to their new Macbook Pro! They can’t wait to make their first iMovie featuruing
their adorable students! They are thrilled to have a place to create
tutorial videos using Quicktime in order to flip their instruction a
little bit. And how about the new possibility of subscribing to
podcasts through iTunes to enrich their curriculum content. Here are a list of the top ten items we are covering in our mac training as well as a link to our agenda for the day.1. Shutting down, putting to sleep, and restarting your macbook2. How to open and shut down an application3. How to use Spotlight4. How to customize your dock5. How to connect to your wireless network6. How to locate a printer7. How to go back and forth between two open applications8. How to use Finder to find documents, downloads, and applications9. How to use and customize the track pad gestures10. How to access your common and home drives

A
few questions keep coming up. One is “Should I use my personal Apple
ID?” The answer is YES! Unless you want to repurchase all of your apps
and music you will need to use your own apple ID to download anymore
music and your previous purchases. Another question that has come up is
do we have Publisher? The answer is NO. Use the templates provided in
your Microsoft word application. Or better yet, use the templates in
Google and create an online publication. With
time, I know our previous PC users will get used to their new way of
doing things with their Macbooks. We hope that the level of creativity
and productivity will increase as well. Remember folks, if in doubt
think in simple terms and drag and drop!Writing by Jenny Krzystowczyk